his hands toward the little crooked old woman, who had not strength to
rise from her crouching posture, and seizing her with loving impetuosity,
lifted her as if she were a child, and placing her on his knees, drew her
into a close embrace.

Tabus willingly submitted to this act of violence, and passing her thin
left arm around her son's bull neck with her free hand, patted his
bearded cheeks, wrinkled brow, and bushy, almost white hair.

No intelligible words passed the lips of either the mother or the son at
this meeting; nothing but a confused medley of tender and uncouth natural
sounds, which no language knows.

Yet they understood each other, and Ledscha, who had moved silently
aside, also comprehended that these low laughs, moans, cries, and
stammers were the expressions of love of two deeply agitated hearts,
and for a moment an emotion of envy seized her.

The gods had early bereft her of her mother, while this savage fighter
against the might of the waves, justice, law, and their pitiless, too
powerful defenders, this man, already on the verge of age, still
possessed his, and sunned his rude heart in her love.

It was some time before the old pirate had satisfied his yearning for
affection and placed his light burden down beside the fire.

Tabus now regained the power to utter distinct words, and, difficult as
it was for her half paralyzed tongue to speak, she poured a flood of
tender pet names and affectionate thanks upon the head of her rude son,
the last one left, who had grown gray in bloody warfare; but with the